


if I recover

by Dahlia_Moon



Category: Castle, Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Community: intoabar, Epistolary, Female Character of Color, Gen, POV Female Character, Reichenbach Falls, Reichenbach Feels, oh man i want an elementary interpretation of reichenbach so bad, vague season/series 2 for elementary, vague season/series 6 for castle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dahlia_Moon/pseuds/Dahlia_Moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson walks into a bar and meets... Richard Castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if I recover

The Old Haunt is only a place she’s heard about, but has never actually been to before. Once upon a time, it was because she was drowning in studies and didn't have time to gallivant all around New York, then it was because she took up detective work with Sherlock and they never seemed to have time for it then either. It’s actually quite perfect that the first time she sets foot into the bar is after…after _he’s_ gone.

She orders a whiskey, and goes straight for the farthest booth in the back that she can find, needing privacy. She settles in, the leather nice and comfortable. She gets out a pen and opens the small black notebook she has brought specifically for this reason. She has contemplated using her laptop but it feels...impersonal somehow.

She writes the date and her hand stills.

 _Dear Sherlock_ , she begins.

_I'm..._

_Not really sure why I'm writing. Writing an old-fashioned letter at any rate. It's ridiculous. You're..._

_~~You're dea-~~ _

_~~Rot-~~ _

_You're not here. And nothing is going to change that._

_Honestly? It seems counterproductive. I don't think it'll help. It's not like you're going to reply. But Alfredo...He thinks getting these words out will be therapeutic for me._

_I guess we'll see._

_I hate you._

_No, I really, really, really hate you. My life was perfectly fine before I met you. And then I did meet you, and...I don't think I'll ever be the same again. And I blame you for that. Who the fuck gave you the right? Who the fuck gave you the right to become so important to me?_

_Yes, that's right, I swear. I can swear just as well as the foulest mouths out there._

_And if you had bothered to stick around, maybe you'd know that._

_Okay, so..._

_That might've been a bit immature. And I can acknowledge that. It was just: I tripped over your records today, the ones you had left lying in the middle of the floor, the ones I had told you to pick up after you were done listening to them because I was afraid I'd step on them and damage them. I was also carrying both the laundry and Clyde at the time._

_I could've tripped, you know._

_Clyde could've been hurt._

_I guess I should talk about the service we gave you._

_It was very somber. And people said some very nice things about you. Well--they said some very nice things about your detective skills, but it was implied that you were a good person too. You weren't always nice, Sherlock, but you were. You were a very good person._

_Mycroft was at your funeral. So was your dad. I guess there was one appointment that he never missed, after all._

_Mycroft had said, after wards, "I really thought drugs would've done the job," which is an asshole thing to say, at your brother's funeral, but it was nice to see him again--though I wish it had been under better circumstances._

_Captain Gregson was there too and Detective Bell and practically the whole precinct, as well as Ms. Hudson and Alfredo and Lestrade and apparently some of your contacts? Which I didn't want to know about. And the less I know, the better I'd probably fare._

_Ms. Hudson was not in this week._

_I didn't blame her, considering._

_Speaking of not going back to normal, Captain Gregson thought I should take a break from consulting with the police department._

_I told him I was fine._

_It's not like you haven't taught me well._

_Yet..._

_I still need you._

She stares at the last sentence, the black letters glaring at her. It's something she hasn't been able to voice out loud. She's held it together pretty well this week. She hasn't cried, is the point, has mostly been in a daze, has mostly been running scenarios over and over in her head of what she could've done, to save  _him_ , to keep him out of Moriarty's clutches. 

She doesn't even feel bad when she thinks that it's good the bitch herself died along with Sherlock--going back to prison would've felt hollow and more than Jamie Moriarty deserved, quite frankly.

The pen drops from her fingers, and she wipes at her face, suddenly tired. She hasn't been sleeping all that well either. Random noises wake her up, sometimes she feels a presence in the house, something or someone watching her sleep, sometimes she thinks she catches movement out of the corner of her eye, but of course she knows it's all in her mind.

She goes to take a shot of her whiskey, still left untouched, when she feels eyes on her. She looks up and sees a gentleman in a blue pinstriped suit looking at her with curious, but kind, blue eyes. She smiles politely at him, breaks eye contact and tries to place where she's seen him before. His face is familiar and she feels like she should know him, but her mind is having a hard time coming up with a name.

She only has to wait a minute before she sees him come over to her.

"I have to apologize for staring," he starts, polite and charming, "but I just noticed you were kind of upset and I was wondering if the service is so bad here that it garners that kind of reaction from customers."

"Oh no, it's just been that kind of week." 

"May I?" he asks, pointing to the empty side of the booth across from her. 

She nods, but closes her notebook quickly.

"Rick Castle, owner of this establishment," he extends his hand, beaming. Joan shakes it and that's when it hits her: he's that famous novelist who works for the 12th Precinct in New York.

"Joan Watson."

"Well, Ms. Watson, I hope you don't think this is too forward seeing as we've just met, but do you want to talk about this upsetting week you've had?"

It's right on the tip of her tongue to say no. If she can't talk about it with Alfredo, Marcus, or Gregson or...any of them, really, then it should be no different with a stranger, albeit a famous stranger, a stranger who she might've been a (secret) fan of. The silence threatens to consume them in an awkward atmosphere. Joan looks down, at her fingers clutching her notebook. It's too late for her to tell him to buzz off, she reasons.

"Um, well, I've recently lost a dear friend."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

She knows it's just politeness that makes him say it, but he sounds genuine nonetheless.

"Free beer on the house," he says next, surprising her. She has anticipated him wanting to know how Sherlock died, to talk about it more. She really doesn't have energy for it now though. Maybe Rick Castle gets that, from the way he's not pressuring her to talk, maybe knows that this is as much as she can share right now. 

His hand goes to his right breast pocket. "If you need anything, feel free to call." He hands her a business card. _Richard Castle, Crime Fighting Superhero and Novelist_ , it reads, and there's a fax and cell number below.

Joan chuckles. "Cute. You're real smooth, Rick Castle."

He chuckles along with her. "I'm not trying to pick you up. I have a modicum of manners than to try to pick up a grieving woman--not that you aren't beautiful because you are, but I'm happily engaged." And he flashes her a gold band around his finger which Joan has somehow missed. "No, really, it's just an offer to lend an ear whenever you need."

"Aren't you novelists busy all year 'round? Should you be giving me your phone number?"

"I'm never too busy to talk with a fellow consulting detective."

Joan's eyes widen in surprise at that. "I never told you what I did," she says, suspicious for the first time about what Rick Castle is really up to. She can handle him flirting with her and trying to pick her up, but she can't handle whatever this is.

"You didn't have to, Ms. Watson. Let's just say, we both have a mutual friend in the business."

"A mutual friend...? You mean Captain Gregson?"

Castle only smiles at her mysteriously. "It was nice meeting you, Joan Watson."

She stares long after Rick Castle has disappeared from her sight. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you've only seen the RDJ+Jude Law Sherlock Holmes movies, that totally qualifies you to write Reichenbach fic, right? I'm gonna go and assume yes. :-P
> 
> (This was originally going to be called "All Your Tomorrows Are Gone" and the fic basically consisted of Joan writing to Sherlock after his "death" at the hands of Moriarty. The fic somehow didn't work for me, so I recycled the plot and it became this crossover fic with Castle. IDK. I guess I just didn't want to focus writing only about Sherlock's death.)


End file.
